In the field of aircraft, the known mechanisms for closing a safety belt are standard for almost all commercial flights. These standard mechanisms comprise, in a known way, a buckle formed by a male element and a female element capable of interacting with one another to lock the belt. The male element and/or the female element may slide relative to a corresponding strap to adapt the belt to the morphology of the passenger. Such belts do not have a system for automatically detecting their locking.
Their locking is therefore usually checked by on-board personnel, notably in the parking, take-off and landing phases of the aircraft, but also in case of turbulence and/or an emergency situation. However, such visual checks are time-consuming and cannot provide certainty as to whether the passenger has detached his safety belt immediately after the check made by the on-board personnel. There are also possible errors due to such visual checks made by a human being.
Some automated monitoring systems have been proposed to overcome the aforementioned problems. However, these automated monitoring systems require the installation of power sources and dedicated network links, which necessitate a modification of, and/or an increase in, the overall dimensions of the seat, so that the seat can be adapted to the intrusive nature of such automated monitoring systems.
Moreover, although some known devices, such as that described in the document U.S. Pat. No. 6,737,862, can detect the locking of the safety belt, they cannot distinguish the presence of a person relative to that of an object, or discriminate the position of a locked safety belt located above or below the passenger, in a case where the passenger is sitting on the safety belt.